


Everything has a Price

by littlecreature, witchcraffft



Category: The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, caos - Fandom
Genre: AU, Angst, Bcus, F/F, Family, Fluff, I hope ur ready to feel things, Other, Yall gonna feel things, d/w no incest, i love them both so much, just mother and daughter getting to know each other, just wholesome mother and daughter content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17042651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlecreature/pseuds/littlecreature, https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchcraffft/pseuds/witchcraffft
Summary: In all her career, Zelda Spellman has never lost a child.Except the one she gave up.





	1. prelude: my life is made up of tiny puzzle parts that no longer fit together

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been burning in my mind since mid November. But due to uni and exams, I haven’t had time to write. Now I do and unfortunately for y’all, it’s angsts time. Thank you to Nikka and Chels for encouraging me. Nikka esp for editing and helping and just being the voice of Zelda.

“For your nerves, dove.”

Dorcas winces slightly at the nickname but takes the steaming cup of tea that Hilda offers her into her hands. She doesn’t hear much else of what else is said to her, as her own thoughts have taken a hold of her.

A month ago, she had been lost in an academy full of people who had no clue what it felt to be parentless, directionless. Now, having figured out half of that equation, she felt even more lost than before.

The Spellman house seems to take on its own life around her. Sabrina and Ambrose did the polite thing, and busied themselves in their own bedrooms, but if she listened close enough, she could just hear them. Sabrina had thrown herself down on her bed, but Ambrose was pacing, rapidly.

Hilda was hovering in the kitchen, not sure whether she should stay or go and leave both Dorcas and Zelda alone. All three of them are torn. Hilda wants answers, Zelda doesn’t want to give them and Dorcas just wants to go back home.

Well, this could be her home now. Could she think of it like that? Would they want her to stay? Sabrina would surely have objections. Of course, it’s warmer than the academy, but she’d spent so long at the school, she wasn’t sure she could think of any other building the same way.  

Hilda does eventually leave the room, the tension palpable and far too much.

“I—“ the young witch begins after a long moment of silence, her voice breaking and getting caught in her throat. Dorcas takes a sip of her tea to clear it, and she hears the faint whoosh of a flame as Zelda lights a cigarette. She looks up, watching the older witch as she takes a long drag. Decides it would be inappropriate to ask for own one.

“So I suppose you want some answers?”


	2. making ornaments of accidents and possibilities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eternal, and eternal i shall endure.  
> all hope abandon, ye who enter here.
> 
> \- Dante Alighieri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big love to nikka for betaing this! and thank you for all the comments and kudos thus far!

Accidents were not rare occurrences at the Academy of Unseen Arts. Spells went awry all the time, especially with the younger students. Students were known to set their familiars (those familiars had been snuck into the academy in the first place, and were promptly sent packing) on each other, and harrowing injuries were definitely not out of the question (until Father Blackwood repealed the harrowing tradition).

However, the weird sisters were hardly ever patients at the Infernal Infirmary. In fact, Agatha’s time in there after her shoddy resurrection had been the first time any of them had been admitted since they were physical children. Yet even then, it was never for anything serious. A scraped knee or cold (or an instant hair regrowth after someone got far too comfortable with a pair of scissors) that distracted their classes so they ended up sent straight back to the dormitory (which then resulted in the leftover sisters sneaking out of class to head back to their room, giving comfort to whoever had been stuck there).

This was until Dorcas had become rather arrogant in regards to her own gifts. See, she was quite gifted with the art of astral projection (and with other forms of long distance magic; poppetry being another one of them). Perhaps a little too much of a natural. When she was a child, and still only just a ward of the church and not quite a student, she would frequently project in the middle of the night, when she was sleeping. This only lead to a deep rooted fear of sleep—something that had to be quelled by a multitude of sleeping draughts, and when she was around three, clinging to the nightgown of the High Priest‘s wife, much to her displeasure. But she still sat with her, lest she gain a reproachful look from both Prudence and Agatha in the morning time, when their own sleep had been disturbed by the young redhead climbing underneath their covers, begging for some sweet reassuring words before falling asleep atop them. Not that they particularly minded - they were used to sharing beds, and it didn’t really matter whose it was—it was the sudden intrusion and feeling of cold air against exposed skin waking them up that they had grumbled about. So Constance ended up reading to the little witch at three in the morning, until her eyes drooped shut - not that she would ever mention it out loud.

Dorcas has decided to practice her projection skills one evening in an empty classroom in the east wing of the academy; setting up her personal set of candles (brand new, a gift from Agatha on her past birthday) and her own book of shadows just beside her. The grimoire was old and slightly tattered (it had presented itself to her that way and she was ever so careful with. Treating it with the same reverence as their holy book - perhaps even more.), but she loved it anyway (despite Prudence’s taunts that her own one was leather bound and the pages crisp), with sigils and spells and personal developments scrawled into each page, as if her thoughts never seem to end. Her mistake had been that she wasn’t properly focused and hadn’t intended to be.

She, simply put, wanted to see where she ended up. A rookie mistake.

As her ascent into the astral plane started, her soul tumbled, and as soon as she felt the heat, she knew she had done the wrong thing.

Hell has many circles, and fortunately for the young witch, she had ended up on one of the higher circles, but that did not mean she wouldn’t run into any demons — and she had ran right into the clutches of one. Faced with a towering figure, she barely has time to scream before it is on her, ripping at her flesh and spewing her sins out at her - the hellfire looming closer and closer.

Back at the academy, her body begins to fit, foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back into her head, her skin red and blistering. Bloody wounds appearing under her clothes as her projected body is viciously attacked by a power that shouldn’t be above her. Her bones crack and there are points where she contorts into impossible positions. Not a possession—just merely a display of what happens when little witches do not pay attention.

Minor demons are rather jealous of witches, as they feel the Dark Lord granted the witches’ powers that belonged to them. Do they hash this out with the Dark Lord?

Of course not.

They just attack any witch foolish enough to summon them, or that wanders into their domain. Demons are creatures that are beyond reason and logic, fueled by the most primal of emotions, and really, shouldn’t be blamed for their irrational urges. But they are, because attacking a witch is foolhardy and unnecessary — especially since witches will kindly offer their services of magic in return for some hellfire, should they be unable to summon their own.

Her body is found by a pale-faced first year student, who is frozen scared in spot for a few moments, watching the older girl convulse. The younger one suddenly comes to her senses, screaming her head off for Father Blackwood, for anyone to come help, because she doesn’t know what to do.

He of course, turns up, fearing intrusion into the school. The two remaining Weird Sisters soon follows, quickly realising that their sister has disappeared — and suddenly the High Priest has to deal with ending a projection and pulling Dorcas back into her body, as well as two of his hysterical students. 

It is not an easy feat, but Faustus prides himself on being a man of exceptional power and proves himself thus.

Dorcas does return to her corporeal body, bloodied, heaving, and vomiting a mix of brimstone and academy supplied food as soon as her eyes reopen. She is carted off to the Infernal Infirmary, which is where she now lies with a fever consuming her body as she heals, wounds taped up, her sisters curled up in the chairs beside her, listening for the eventual levelling of her breathing.

The High Priest and the nurses tried their best to heal the orphan’s wounds and keep her sedated. The wrongful witch having suffered the consequences of her actions far too much already as she writhed and groaned in pain, feeling the infernal pull and scratching of the demon under her skin.

It’s only then that the matron ushers them out, barking that Dorcas needs rest and when she finally wakes, she won’t be able to have visitors straight away. They protest (loudly) but the matron of the academy is a stern woman and they know better than to continue to challenge her, ducking their heads in shame as they are reminded that they are not too old to be exempt from childish punishments.

At the Spellman Mortuary, Zelda smokes her cigarette serenely poised at her holder, unaware of the chaos that has wrecked havoc at the academy until the phone rings before the sun can even be fully spotted at the horizon, urgently disturbing her from her rest. Hilda is snoring still, so Zelda sees to it that the accursed device is answered. 

“Spellman Mortuary, Zelda speaking, how may I help you this morning?”

“Zelda —“

The voice she receives on the end of the phone is not one she expected - especially as she was not scheduled in for any lessons that day. Before Faustus can get his sentence finished; she interjects, cutting him off with all the civility she could muster on a Friday morning, “Faustus, I told you. I need to be at the mortuary today and you cannot change my mind on that matter.” She hisses, her free hand coming to massage her forehead. Why had she left her cigarettes in the kitchen? He’s pushing for the last of her patience and she was suddenly in need of a good long drag at them.

“Let me finish, Sister Spellman.” His voice was noticeably tired and he pauses to take a drink of scotch. “There has been an accident at the academy — and given your family’s knack for projection—“

She snorts on the other end of the line. Knack was an understatement. Spellmans had an ancestral blessing in that department.

She can feel his pointed glare despite the distance between them and lets him continue. “—I was hoping you could help the poor student get back on her feet. This is beyond our dear matron’s abilities, unfortunately.”

“She is clearly entirely incompetent then, Faustus.” She bites back smugly.

“Zelda.” He sighs.

“Yes — yes! I understand that the recuperation process is a little different to other magically sustained injuries.” 

“Will you come?”

She pauses, thinking. Helping a student through this could take a while. Witches and warlocks don’t just miraculously bounce back free from hell without dire consequences, and if Faustus was calling upon her, they must be grave. “When?”

“The matron is keeping her under for three days. On the fourth day, she should be awake. Come then, but let’s not rush into things. She was in such an awful shape last night.”

Zelda hums her silent agreement through the phone.“And the name of the child?”

“Dorcas Night.”


	3. change, like healing, takes time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> YOU’RE IN LOVE WITH IMPOSSIBILITY 
> 
> \- Sophocles, Antigone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u to nikka for betaing and writing a little part of this chapter! you are the best! 
> 
> sorry for the little disappearance, everyone! illness, christmas and work happened but here is an update and there is more to come!

 

“Thank you for coming, Sister Spellman,” the matron starts as she leads Zelda into the ward, and she only nods in response, recognising the girl in the bed and the blonde that was sitting in the chair beside her, head dipped towards the floor.

 

“I’ll take it from here, matron. I trust her chart is on the foot of the bed?”

 

“Of course.“

 

“Good.” Zelda eyes the smaller woman and she turns on her heel, leaving the three of them in the room. She approaches the bed, resting her hand on the back of the chair.

 

It had been four days since the attack on the youngest Weird Sister, and she is certain that Prudence has not left the ward.

 

Or, at the very least, tried her very best not to.

 

“Don’t you have a class to be in, Prudence? “ The matriarch’s voice is firm, but has a slightly softer undertone, showcasing that she meant Prudence no harm, knowing that the Blackwood girl’s temper could spark at any moment.

 

“Sister Spellman,” Prudence whips around and nods towards the direction of the older witch. “I’m on top of my classes. Nothing Agatha can’t catch me up with.”

 

“Alright, then, let’s have a look here.” Zelda says, examining the girl on the bed and walks over to the end of it, retrieving the chart. She goes over it with keen attention, her eyebrows furrowing in deep focus that was almost immediately cut off by a yawn from Prudence and a low grumble in her stomach. She takes pity in the girl, the bags under her eyes and the tired slouch. “Why don’t you get some food in your belly and some shut eye, I’ll sit with her for a while.”

 

She snaps up, “You don’t have to, I’m fine. Agatha’s coming later for her turn to sit with Dorcas. I’ll be fine until then.”

 

“Nonsense. You go and take care of yourself before we have the two of you bunking together in this infirmary.” Announces the Spellman witch.

 

Prudence just nods, too tired to complain and the grumbling in her stomach getting too loud for her to protest.

 

Zelda sits on the chair the young witch vacated and resumes reading the chart.

 

What she found didn’t look too promising. The injuries were (unsurprisingly) mostly internal. Yes, there was bruising and scaring of her skin, but her ribs were broken and practically crushed, and during her lucid hours, she mostly just babbled about what she’d seen.

 

Nothing unusual given the circumstances, and Zelda can’t imagine the pain the girl is in when she’s awake — she herself had made some slip ups in her youth, but never of that magnitude. What intrigues her most, is what exactly possessed Dorcas to astral project without a second witch knowing about it? Was she reckless, or just plain stupid? Maybe both? 

 

Zelda would have to wait for her to wake up to find out. Yet she wasn’t going to rush that process. The young redhead would wake when her body was ready, and Zelda has ample time to wait.

 

Barely an hour passes, before Prudence is back in the ward, a white bundle in her arms.

 

“What did I say, Prudence?”

 

“I figured she might want some of her stuff for when she wakes up. “ Prudence answers stiffly, striding past Zelda and towards the bed. She slides a book on to the cabinet beside the bed.

 

“Her book of shadows - I swear I didn’t try to get into it -, she enjoys writing in it. Daily. For some reason. “ She shrugs, before slinging the white blanket over the hospital one, letting it settle over Dorcas. “Don’t tell anyone, but she sleeps with this under her pillow. I don’t know, she came to the academy with it, and I don’t really think she wants to part with it.” Prudence shakes her head, but Zelda notices... something in Prudence’s eyes.

 

“I just... Thought it might help her wake up.” The young witch’s voice wavers but she blinks away whatever Zelda thought she saw, and she draws herself up.

 

“I mean. The dorm is pretty boring without her, I guess.“

 

“You guess.“ Zelda arches a brow.

 

“Yes.“

 

Zelda doesn’t make a further comment, and Prudence leaves, after smoothing the blanket out, mumbling something about how some sleep sounded good.

 

The Spellman witch busies herself with papers of choral arrangements for a while, simply listening to the girl’s breathing, waiting for her to twitch in her sleep. The unanimous decision had been made to let Dorcas wake up in her own time, rather than magically inducing it — given it could endanger the girl’s already fragile health.

 

At first, she thinks it’s a trick of the light, a trick of her own brain that is no longer distracted by minor chords. But she stands out of the chair, noticing a small, embroidered “S” in the corner of the blanket that had been draped over the unconscious witch.

 

Now, she recognised the design of the letter — and that design only revealed itself to whoever was head of the Spellman household at that time, which of course, had fallen on Zelda, after her brother’s untimely passing.

 

And there was no reason nor right for thatdesign to be on the blanket, because Dorcas wasn’t a Spellman. There hadn’t been a Spellman addition since Sabrina, and Dorcas was at least a physical year older than Sabrina.

 

Which meant. . .

 

No, she chides to herself, pulling herself away from the memory of a frosty little witching town and with it, she steps back from the bed. No, that can’t be it. There was a thought stirring in Zelda that she could have sworn she had... Erased from herself. She had pushed it so far down, she was convinced it never happened. Pushed it even further down when baby Sabrina had ended up in her care.

 

Yet, she could notice that the curve of Dorcas’ lips seemed oddly familiar, the way her freckles were set across her nose... And she has too check. Gently, she tilts Dorcas’ head to the side, quickly looking behind to see if the matron has snuck up on her and caught her.

 

Safe.

 

There it is. The little red patch of skin behind her ear. That little red patch that had worried her so desperately, fearing a rash or allergic reaction she would be unable to treat.

 

She only knew of one little girl to have ever had that mark.


	4. if you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last night was a night of bad dreams and ambiguous visions
> 
> — electra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well! it HAS been a while! sorry for keeping you all so long with this update, but chapter 5 won’t be so far behind! i’ve been very busy with school, work and getting a wisdom tooth mixed with sinus pain! so it was grand holiday season for me! hopefully you won’t be too underwhelmed with this chapter! love to you all!

Connla Ó Raghallaigh had been ballsy enough to approach Zelda in the first place, and that’s what started the whole mess of her pregnancy. She despises him for it, but not more than she hates herself for the miscalculation, for not being careful enough.

She was freshly graduated from the midwifery branch of the Academy and decided to put her career on-hold, briefly. She had no worries — her brother held his position as High Priest and was easily a favourite of the community. She knew she would go home and be offered a job. Nay, handed one.

So, she travelled; visiting spots of other covens, various little pockets of witches across the globe. She started in Salem, then to Fulda in Germany (and ended up backtracking to Trier), North Berwick in Scotland (but not without paying her respects in Paisley) before ending up in Kilkenny, Ireland. The witching community there was small and tight knit, but they welcomed Zelda during her brief stay.

Connla was also a visitor to that particular town and she can vaguely remember him telling her that he was travelling through the whole country. It had been quick, they got to talking and spent the night together in a drunken heap of sweaty limbs and inebriated ecstasy. He moved on the next day without a word.

Zelda thought nothing of it, she’d had more than a few flings to fill the emptiness of the nights during her travels and it was hardly frowned upon by the church of night — unlike other churches. She was normally the one that disappeared the morning after, anyway.

And there was nothing to be thought of, until she started experiencing symptoms that she had only seen on witches she had tended to as a student. It started with small, slight aches, morning sickness, fluctuations in her temperature. She thought she was going through a severe hangover (she enjoyed keeping up with those she met, even if it meant downing some suspicious looking drinks).

Then she started to gain weight. Noticeably in the one place she prayed she wouldn’t.

She had been back in the European mainland by the time her predicament had become obvious, so she decided to make the trip back to find Connla and make him... well, she hadn’t been sure what she would have done with him — a sharp slap, at the very least.

But she couldn’t find anything of him. He hadn’t said where he was going next and she couldn’t remember enough of him to chance a summoning spell. Her memory of his face was so fuzzy, and his name, as it turned out, was frustratingly common.

She hadn’t expected to be pregnant. She hadn’t factored this into any of her plans.

She never informed her family — having multiple partners was one thing, but being pregnant and unwed was something her parents looked down upon, it would cause an indiscretion in their family tree and the Spellmans were nothing if invested in their heritage, and to bring shame to Edward as High Priest? She couldn’t do it.

Yet she couldn’t find it in herself to end it. Abortions weren’t frowned upon by the church (though the dwindling witch population was something they considered, and they tried to advise against it unless medically necessary), so she could get rid of the problem, like it never happened in the first place.

But there had always been a part of her that wanted to be a mother, and in a moment of sheer irrationality; she makes a promise to herself that she will continue with the pregnancy.

She had returned to the cottage she stayed in during her original visit, lied to the rest of her family, told them she was continuing on with her European travels. Which was not a hard lie to sell - it was natural for a newly graduated witch to want to spend some extended time travelling. 

Zelda Spellman gave birth alone, biting back screams until she can’t, hands scrabbling to grip on to the blankets beneath her. She finally got to put her skills to use, in the most unfortunate of situations.

After the birth, she stayed there for a further two weeks, unable to both name her (the child had been born with a shock of red hair and the most adorable nose she had ever seen) or part with her — as much as she had yearned for the tiny, cooing gift in her arms, she couldn’t keep her. It wouldn’t do. She’s too young, too worried, too inexperienced, too insecure about her capabilities as a mother.

After the two weeks passed, she forced herself to go to Salem and drop the bundle (wrapped in a blanket with a personalised Spellman insignia stitched on to it) on the steps of a witches’ house during the dead of night — the child remained nameless. And she forced herself to forget. She purged the memory from her brain. Maybe the child would die, maybe the church wouldn’t accept her. Nevertheless, Zelda Spellman was as childless as ever.

Though the nights she wakes up crying and gasping for breath that even her sister Hilda doesn’t know why have significantly decreased and now only occur sporadically, Zelda Spellman never did forget.

Apparently the witching community of Salem didn’t raise the babe, either. Because the evidence—the child and her witch’s mark, the blanket—present themselves to her in Greendale’s Academy of Unseen Arts. How pitiful, how unwanted, how rejected, how lonely Dorcas Night must have felt all those years.

And now Zelda found herself in the bathroom down the hall from the infirmary, staring into the mirror, her fingers gripping onto the porcelain of the sink basin. The daughter she left on the steps of the academy was lying merely ten feet away, bandaged up from an astral projection gone wrong.

A disaster she could have prevented if only she had taught her what she needed to know.

“Don’t you dare cry.” She hisses, spitting venom at her reflection, who simply blinked back at her. “We are not going to tell her that. She will recover, and we will move on from this. We will gain nothing from taking her back.”

But as she shakes herself out of her state and returns to the ward, she cannot help but take in the failings of the infirmary. The cracked paint, the understaffing, the severely outdated medical equipment (for not everything can be healed by magic) and the urge to drag the girl out of there by her scruff was all too overwhelming.

“Constance?”

The voice is weary and weak and Zelda’s head snaps towards the bed, where she can see the girl’s eyes open (softness oh so painfully swirling like hers, she knows now) and she’s trying to push herself up. She rushes to the bed, stopping the girl from even attempting to sit up any further.

“No! Don’t, you’ll only make yourself worse...” She pants, settling the younger redhead back in place.

“Constance?” Dorcas asks once more, scared and longingly.

The older witch swallows the guilt down, her heart sinking into an abyss of unspoken apologies.

“No, it’s not Constance. It’s Zelda Spellman—Sabrina’s aunt.” Despite the realisation and the confirmation to herself that she is not going to reveal Dorcas’ true parentage to her, (at least, not until she is one hundred percent sure — and she’ll subtly swipe a hair from the girl’s head for that), she cannot help but feel the slight drop of her heart when she hears her ask for Faustus’ wife.

Was finding the girl a punishment? A big cosmic joke? Had she faltered so badly in her devotion to the Dark Lord, that He was now doling out something so painful to her? To put her in her place? She wasn’t sure.

Gently, she removes her arm from around Dorcas’ shoulders, and smoothens out the blanket.

“Do you know who you are?”


End file.
